Higher education, also referred to post-secondary or tertiary education defines education that is offered at collegiate-level institutions including colleges, universities, and institutes of technology, seminaries, trade schools, vocational schools, and career colleges. These institutions grant professional certifications, diplomas, or academic degrees.
Higher education generally follows the completion of high school or secondary school. It includes instruction at the undergraduate and graduate level. It generally includes teaching, research, hands-on and applied experiences, social services, and extracurricular experiences.
Categories of Higher Education
1. General higher education occurs in a college, university, or Institute of Technology. It typically includes considerable theoretical and abstract concepts and applied elements.
2. Vocational higher education and training occurs at vocational schools and universities and generally focuses on practical applications and career preparation and incorporates minimal theory.
3. Professional-level education typically takes place in graduate schools and many academic fields include theoretical, research, vocational, and professional concepts such as medicine, dentistry, and law.
Examples of Concentration Areas
1. Liberal Arts: include a variety of fields including languages, literature, history, political science, philosophy, music, theater, psychology, sociology, and religious studies.
2. Performing Arts: focuses on preparing students to use their body and face to display an action. These types of institutions include drama schools, dance schools, music schools, and circus schools.
3. Visual or Plastic Arts: a category of art forms that involve using a variety of materials that can manipulated to create a type of creation. Examples include drawing, painting, and sculpting. Higher educational visual arts institutions include art schools, design schools, and architecture schools.